Think about it for a while.

Ever since the advent of Ronald Reagan I’ve been loathe to vote for any Republican. As far as I’m concerned the Republican Party had turned into and still is the single greatest threat to our democracy and freedoms bar nothing foreign or domestic (although I gotta say the Dems keep showing signs of catching up).

And I mean that in the literal sense.

When Republican Marion Milne broke with her Republican Party buddies to vote for civil unions back in 2000 I knew a mere phone call wasn’t enough. My thanks had to be meaningful and palpable … so I did what I never ever do … I voted for Republican Milne.

Some issues are that important.

So what are YOU going to do to express your thanks to those who bucked the party trends and voted to make sure more families have access to legal marriage?

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Absolutely nothing … except making a bunch of money by hoodwinking folks across the country we have nothing to fear but a lack of fear itself. And in the process we leave any form logic and common sense behind.

Fifty-seven percent (57%) of U.S. voters nationwide favor a military response to eliminate North Korea’s missile launching capability. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that just 15% of voters oppose a military response while 28% are not sure.

(57% Want Military Response to North Korea Missile Launch, Rasmussen Reports, 04/05/09)

Standing by, primed and ready to take advantage of this built in fear are the fear mongers …

Arguing that the U.S. faces a future gap in advanced, high-resolution imaging capabilities, Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair and Defense Secretary Robert Gates last week asked the White House to approve plans to build a pair of large, cutting-edge spy satellites along with two smaller, less-expensive models commercially available today, these officials said.

(Satellite Proposals Gain Traction After North Korea’s Launch, Wall Street Journal, 04/05/09)

First off let’s put the most blatant bullshit lines to rest: North Korea did not launch a missile, they launched a rocket with a non-weapons payload, and we are no more in danger of some mythical satellite capabilities gap then we were in danger of those equally mythical Iraqi drones cheney/bush & co insisted were ready to be launched off our coasts to spray our women and children.

The more important point, however, is how we as a nation deal with those who are suspicious of us … even have been at war with us in the past and continue a relationship mutually based on a difficult to police armistice. Okay … call North Korea a paranoid nation if you wish. But you don’t bring paranoids into a common fold by threatening them.

Is North Korea a threat to anyone? Nope. It is that simple. North Korea has never invaded another nation. When the Korean war exploded in 1950, it was the result of both the north and south pushing for re-unification … under THEIR respective leadership … not that of the other.

North and South Korea hadn’t existed for more than half a decade at that point. Korea had been divided between the Soviet Union and the non-Soviet Union allies at the end of World War II, and by 1950 neither North nor South accepted that solution.

In the minds of the Koreans there was still only one Korea … period. So began a civil war.

Since the 1953 armistice that ended the Korean war, North Korea as a government has been content to keep its own population under control and maintain dictatorial power.

In that time North Korea has developed (with initial help from the Soviet Union and then China) a sophisticated home grown missile and rocket industry that has even proved itself capable of export. This is also true of their nuclear power/weapons know how.

And that last paragraph is the real answer to our current dilemma vis-a-vis Korea. We should be telling the North we will gladly join in and provide technical help to move their programs forward.

Any nation that has the capability to put a satellite in orbit, which North Korea is only a launch or two away from, is technologically advanced. This type of technological know how takes educated people, and educated people are open to new ideas when they get a chance to hear them.

As an aside I recommend this as our approach to Iran too.

As long as our approach to the North is as belligerent as their approach to us we will remain at a stalemate. We can’t attack the North without an overwhelming conventional response attack on the South. And if we get into a nuclear weapons pissing contest we all lose … literally.

We need to change our approach in a fundamental fashion … one that does not include useless threats or disastrous war.

Unless we want to buy that bullshit about some mythical “gap in advanced, high-resolution imaging capabilities” which will lead to more weaponry built by us which will lead to more suspicions on the part of North Korea which will lead to greater public acrimony which will lead to more military spending which sooner or later will lead to yet one more massive war built on the backs of the working class to enrich a few privileged money brokers …. which is what Washington DC seems all about today.

Courage is not the absence of fear; courage is the conquest of fear. We need to realize we are prepping ourselves for wholesale slaughters and destruction unless we overcome our fears and move into a future based upon courage.

Barack Obama’s chief economic adviser, Larry Summers, received hundreds of thousands of dollars in speaking fees last year from firms that have direct financial interests before the government or are intimately involved in the White House’s bank relief programs.

(Summers Received Hundreds Of Thousands In Speaking Fees From TARP Recipients, Huffington Post, 04/03/09)

Still feelin’ that hope for change? Then how’s about …

Lawrence Summers, a top economic adviser to U.S. President Barack Obama, was paid about $5.2 million by hedge fund D.E. Shaw in the past year, financial disclosure forms released by the White House showed on Friday.

(Hedge fund paid Obama adviser Summers $5.2 million, Boston.com, 04/03/09)

More on Summers …

In the Bill Clinton administration of 2000, the Treasury secretary was Larry Summers, who had just been promoted from number two under former Goldman Sachs banker Robert Rubin to be number one when Rubin left Washington to take up the post of Citigroup vice chairman. As I describe in detail in my new book, Power of Money: The Rise and Fall of the American Century, to be released this summer, Summers convinced President Clinton to sign several Republican bills into law that opened the floodgates for banks to abuse their powers. The fact that the Wall Street big banks spent some US$5 billion in lobbying for these changes after 1998 was likely not lost on Clinton.

(Geithner’s dirty little secret, Asia Times, 04/03/09)

Oh, and that “dirty little secret” referred to in the aforementioned title?

The “dirty little secret” that Geithner is going to great degrees to obscure from the public is very simple. There are only at most perhaps five US banks that are the source of the toxic poison causing such dislocation in the world financial system.

. . .

The top three are, in declining order of importance: JPMorgan Chase, which holds a staggering $88 trillion in derivatives; Bank of America with $38 trillion, and Citibank with $32 trillion. Number four in the derivatives sweepstakes is Goldman Sachs, with a mere $30 trillion …

(ibid)

We already know that Geithner and Summers are as much part and parcel of Wall Street’s status quo as anybody the cheney/bush administration put out there.

There’ve been a few gnawed bones thrown out there for progressives: ending the abortion gag rule and uh … oh a tiny pretension to open government … uh … hmmmm …. ***sigh***.

It seems “change we can believe in” was more about a few quarters in our pockets than real difference.

§ 11. [Governor to approve bills; veto proceedings thereon; nonaction]

Every bill which shall have passed the Senate and House of Representatives shall, before it becomes a law, be presented to the Governor; if the Governor approve, the Governor shall sign it; if not, the Governor shall return it, with objections in writing, to the House in which it shall have originated; which shall proceed to reconsider it. If, upon such reconsideration, two-thirds of the members present of that House shall pass the bill, it shall, together with the objections, be sent to the other House, by which it shall likewise be reconsidered, and if approved by two-thirds of the members present of that House, it shall become a law.

(Chapter 2, § 11 of the Vermont Constitution as presented on the Vermont legislative website)

Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, Obama’s pick for Health and Human Services secretary, did not pay $7,040 in taxes between 2005 and 2007. She paid the back taxes and penalty after they were identified.

(Health nominee Sebelius reveals tax troubles, LA Times, 04/01/09)

I mean … what’s up with the tax dodging and hollering?

I’m no tax prude; I’ve owed back taxes three times in my life: once due to a false filing by an ex-employer, once due to my own neglect, and once due to the Douglas administration retroactively changing tax policy without any input from the legislature.

Two out of three of those times I ended up paying some penalties and the back tax. On the last one Vermont’s General Assembly undid the Douglas administrative tax increase (happy to tell you about that one if you’re interested … very short story).

What I’m trying to say is: I know there are situations which arise without ill intent that result in owing back taxes.

And to be fair, Ms Sebelius’ tax debt is not very large, and she claims some very innocuous and possibly good reasons for her tax problems. She may be absolutely innocent of anything worse than small oversight errors.

But how many folks in public life can we go through and keep finding this kind of problem? It seems the norm rather than exception which violating law is supposed to be for the ruling elite of our nation.

On top of that we have Republicans screaming like pigs in a botched slaughter about these tax issues. The same Republicans that have helped develop tax havens and have made tax bashing a national pastime. The perfect definition of hypocrisy: working hard to destroy our nation’s finances by attacking how we raise our common money and then bemoaning the fact that people take them seriously and view taxes as a pain in the ass to be avoided rather than a valuable contribution to society that should be embraced.

Republicans hate taxes (except when they’re to pay off national debt that Republicans have helped create by siphoning our nation’s money off to their uber-wealthy friends … ‘nother story though). They should be applauding their friends from the “other side of the aisle” who have come to agree with them.

I guess what I’m trying to say is it looks like there’s nothing more than lack of attention to a very small detail involved in Sebelius’ tax problem; but if we were to view taxes as an important means to accomplish worthy goals far fewer of us would be so lackadaisical about accurate tax filings … especially when in the very public sphere of national political life.

Plus we could use a little better than this Palin style vetting of Cabinet wannabes.

just this once, have a taxpayer funded administration run website that is not a tax payer re-election gimmick for you???

Please … just this once? Oh, sorry … I’m referring to

Governor Douglas today announced a bold new economic plan to build SmartVermont

Quoted from our taxpayer funded state web site that’s supposed to bring transparency to the Obama led economic recovery attempt.

I mean really … we have to pay for your “the governor is all wonderful all the time” spokesbots and we have to pay for your governor’s web site … can we please not have to pay for your re-election campaign just this once?

No? Thought so.

When CIA officials subjected their first high-value captive, Abu Zubaida, to waterboarding and other harsh interrogation methods, they were convinced that they had in their custody an al-Qaeda leader who knew details of operations yet to be unleashed, and they were facing increasing pressure from the White House to get those secrets out of him.

. . .

In the end, though, not a single significant plot was foiled as a result of Abu Zubaida’s tortured confessions, according to former senior government officials who closely followed the interrogations. Nearly all of the leads attained through the harsh measures quickly evaporated, while most of the useful information from Abu Zubaida — chiefly names of al-Qaeda members and associates — was obtained before waterboarding was introduced, they said.

(Detainee’s Harsh Treatment Foiled No Plots, Washington Post, 03/29/09)

Even before President Obama suspended military commissions at the military base in Cuba, prosecutors had expunged Abu Zubaida’s name from the charge sheets of a number of detainees who were captured with him and stood accused of conspiracy and material support for terrorism.

When they were first charged in 2005, these detainees were accused of conspiring with Abu Zubaida, and the charge sheets contained numerous references to Abu Zubaida’s alleged terrorist activities. When the charges were refiled last year, his name had vanished from the documents.

(ibid)

If you’ve ever read Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago, you’ll know the routine: time to beat what one wants to hear out of somebody just to hear to that somebody say it … true or not.

Those who permitted or planned torture should be going on trial just as those who conspired to commit or did commit torture.

Picked up over at the Prog Blog:

Activists are calling for rallies across Vermont on Monday to stop the State budget cuts and support a “People’s Plan.”

Rally Locations will be held in:

• Burlington: on Church and Main; 5:30pm

• Montpelier: at the Pavilion Building, 109 State St; 5:00pm

• Bennington: at the Intersection of Rte 7 & Rte 9; 4pm

• Brattleboro: at Pliny Park in downtown Brattleboro; 5:30pm

• Randolph: at Main St in front of Northfield Savings Bank; 5pm

• Middlebury: in the Traffic Island @ Middlebury Inn; 12 Noon

• Rutland: on West Street; 5:30pm

• Johnson: downtown; 5pm

• St Johnsbury: in front of the Athenaeum; 5pm

• White River Junction: at the intersection of Routes 5 & 14; 5pm

Sorry I can’t physically join you folks, but I’m there in spirit and on the phones to our legislators.

By the way … with this strong marriages vs. those who would deny fellow citizens their equal rights debate going on and the above mentioned budgetary decisions to be made … NOW would be a good time to tell your Democratic lawmaker that a failure to support good progressive values will turn into a no show from you when it comes to volunteering time, donating campaign money or vote.

Or you can wait to hold feet to the fire (what ever).

Imagine Guv Douglas standing at the podium, bloody nose being held in handkerchief after being removed entirely from our collective face via a fine scalpel job. “These are tough times,” opines the guv, “And yes, that means we need to spite our faces!”

After all, who gives a crap about tomorrow when we have today to mess up?

An administration proposal to gut staff at the Agency of Natural Resources’ solid-waste program could be a serious setback to trash-reduction and recycling initiatives around the state, according to agency personnel and environmental watchdogs familiar with the plan.

(Waste program faces dramatic cut, Times Argus, 03/27/09)

The article goes on to explain how the job of running the state’s solid waste programs would simply be driven down to a lower political level … no mention of additional funds being made available to help those down the political ladder perform their job.

So here’s trick: to make the state budget look better, Douglas and company will gut programs dealing with how we manage our trash (so it doesn’t pollute our streams, fill up our countryside, spread around our roadsides and more) by pushing the job down a couple political levels to folks who don’t have the time or resources to do the job.

And Douglas will wave our collective nose high in the air proclaiming how he absolutely had to cut that damn thing off to spite our collective face.

This is identical to what Douglas and company want to do to our education budgets: pass off a state responsibility (teacher retirement funding) to the towns without worrying about the reality that towns are having a hard time paying for what they’re expected to pay for.

It’s not very complex really, and the reason the status quo liars, bullies, cheats, torturers and war mongers are on the upswing right now boils down to: there really isn’t any difference between today’s Republican and Demcratic parties.

One exception: the Reps will throw their chewed bones to the religious extremists while the Dems throw their chewed bones to labor and environmentalists.

Know why Obama is looking bad on the Wall Street bailout? It’s because Obama too really believes the line that to protect our common economy we have to toady up to the uber-wealthy and huge corporate interests. Obama is not now or ever going to break up corporate power, and neither are his fellow DC Democrats.

That’s why the Dems rushed to this ill thought out tax “claw back” of the AIG bonuses. They could have insisted on explicit wording dealing with bonuses for failed executives and employees of failed corporations we’re bailing out with our tax dollars, but instead the Dems, who cheney/bush depended on to pass the Wall Street bailout in the first place, went ahead and gave Paulson and then Geithner unsigned checks for hundreds of billions of dollars. Instead we’re witnessing a political panic by the Dems … desperately trying to undo the damage they themselves knowingly did in the first place.

Now the Dems are using taxing authority as a retro-active punishment to cover up their own lousy politics instead of a forward looking social tool. Nice way to treat taxes.

Of course Paulson and company at the Treasury knew about these bonuses, and so did Geithner both before and after Obama nominated him for Treasury Secretary. And if cheney/bush or Obama were unaware that there were these huge bonuses waiting to be paid out with our tax dollars … that’s nothing less than gross incompetence.

Look at the difference in worker treatment from Wall Street to Detroit. In Detroit the workers were expected to sign on to any deal with firm commitments of shared sacrifice. On Wall Street few challenged the pay scales and perks. And in the end our federal Congress and Administration opted to continue their obsequious pandering to the well heeled, corporate interests of today.

Look at the military spending. Instead of beating some of that yearly $700 billions worth of swords into plowshares, Obama is busy setting us up for more swords. Wars are very much on Obama’s list of things to do as witnessed by his commitment to expand the Afghanistan war despite plenty of evidence that the more we attack the more the Afghanis and Pakistanis want us (the occupiers) gone. Obama is not looking to get us out of Iraq; he is looking to move a few troops from Iraq to Afghanistan, and, assuming we live up to our agreements and actually quit Iraq in several years, Obama still wants to maintain a strong military presence in the mid-east just in case we need to do another invasion.

Will Obama raise taxes? Nope … he’s already punted that one down the road far enough for new excuses when the time comes.

The thugs in Congress and Administration made damn sure our nation was driven deeply into debt, and these same thugs made sure the debt went to benefit the uber-wealthy. Obama is going to finish driving the nails into the coffin lid of progressive policies with his prescription of all-debt all-the-time regarding any economic recovery spending.

Here too Obama has bought ownership in a destructive line: we can create an economy that can grow to such an extent we can pay off all the debt our government has created. We have never paid a penny of the Johnson, Nixon, Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton and Bush debts despite the exact same promise of grow to pay.

And there’s a simple reason for this as any decent business person can tell you. Simply stated one reduces debt by finding cash to pay it down, and one can find cash by spending less or earning more … usually a combination.

The answers to our current economic issues are equally simple. We need to reduce expenditures in specific areas, and we need to increase taxes across the board.

Otherwise we’re fucked, and that’s because the thugs are going to win this round too, and that’s because today’s DC Dems and Reps really are no different in their means and ends.